Thursday, September 23, 2010

Audiograms and puretone

   Yesterday we were with a big ENT surgeon who specializes in CI and we were there for testing her hearing. I am very sure that I do not want to do surgery but would like to wait for maybe stem cell in future.We got her aided audiogram done and we were very depressed with the results.Prisha's gain is not too good on the hearing aid and that means she is not hearing too well.But our hard work and her willingness to work has given us the results so far. But she does strain for listening and does talk loudly. The audiologist in India did make a mess for reasons of her own and she refused to do anything further when we went to her. She had been after me to get her implanted and has fingered with her levels of hearing aids. I was scared to go back as I did not want to mess it up further.She is known to be a crook and she is the only one who has the latest technology and we were dependent on her. We had asked her in the past to give us the printouts of Prisha's HA levels for our reference and she has always denied to give.I have always felt she has been cheating us but cannot fight it out for the simple reason that I depend on her for HA services. The helplessness was always killing.But through hard work, Prisha has been auditorily trained. She had told me that her aids have been given maximum gain and nothing can be done further and out of sheer helplessness we have just survived so far. Once here, we were looking for answers.But after yesterday, I was so depressed as the doc told us that nothing further was possible and only best hearing was possible through CI.But I am very keen to continue with HAs. So we took our quest further and decided to look for audiologist instead of seeing a surgeon. We contacted the Siemens HA cetre and through them we came across a company which has centres across the country.At there center , I was so amazed at the facilities. She told us that the kids centre was elsewhere and she is fixing our appointment with them as soon as possible.She checked her aids, looked for the settings and we asked her if it was possible to increase the volume in the right ear which has good hearing. She increased it by 1db and was surprised to see Prisha's instant reaction. She suddenly softened down, was hearing better and answered the 5 ling test too very well! The lady gave us printouts of all her levels of her HA original as well as after the 1db change too.I was so happy and sighed with relief as I knew we were in the right place after looking around for 1 month now.In the car too Prisha was not straining to listen while I talked from the front seat and she was happy too.I was so upset about my audiologist in Pune  telling lies to me that nothing more could be done.Here with just 1 db change, she was so happy. We need to check her entire frequency range and see how best we can work on her to get better hearing so she is comfortable and is able to function better.In India, I was so helpless but here I got a few answers. We hope to get our problem solved soon. According to the audiologist in Pune and the surgeon here, the change in HA    cannot be adjusted in the speech banana.But the audiologist here is sure that we could better it and get good help.Things look suddenly nice after a long time.I ate a big breakfast and slept well after this.Soon we should have some good reasons to smile when Prisha is doing very well in school.Yesterday, she broke a word herself to read it by herself using phonics (jump).I was so happy and had tears streaming down.Hopefully her issues in school would get resolved soon.

4 comments:

  1. I hope the slight increase in volume will help her a lot! I've heard that some parents have very good luck with the Phonak Naida aids- they're really powerful.

    I get depressed looking at Nolan's aided hearing levels. His loss is only moderately severe, so he should be hearing very well with his aids. He is only hearing in the moderate levels in the low and high frequencies, so something is not right with his aids. We are going to Children's after this latest surgery to try and sort out his hearing- it is stressful when they aren't hearing as well as they should!

    I do know a couple of teenagers who have gotten CI's and were very happy because they didn't have to strain as hard to listen (though they did have to learn to hear with the CI, which takes some auditory training). One is going to college in a year, so he is doing very well!

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  2. Yes, I am already seeing the change. Prisha has softened down and is giving me more response. She is also more clear!! I had to read softly today and I am thrilled. Hope you too can figure out what can be done with Nolan's aids.
    I know CI are better as far as hearing goes, but I am clear that I do not want any intrusive surgery for her and change the aids when needed.She is responding well and I feel that extra work is still worth it.From what I have heard and seen CI do limit your lives.They have their do's and don'ts.HA have fewer of them.

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  3. I'm so glad you're finally getting proper services! Before CIs were a possibility, people did very well with hearing aids, and it's entirely possible for Prisha to be very successful with aids. CIs are a big commitment, to be sure, and it's really only something you should consider if you've exhausted all other options and she's still struggling. I'm glad a small adjustment had such a great benefit for her.

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  4. The only thing you can't do with a CI is deep sea scuba diving.

    My daughter can hear at 15 db, she couldn't hear better than 30 with hering aids. HUGE difference.

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